CH 24

Since the unique configuration of the building remained, I thought that maybe they were using this story as a marketing technique. I was in a foreign country where I couldn’t understand the language at all—I only spent half a day there, so I had no further knowledge about it.

“But when did you go to Hong Kong?”

The continuous questions left me off guard and the name “Yeonseon” almost slipped out, but I shut my mouth before that happened. I peered at Woorim’s face, who was walking beside me. He was pretending he didn’t hear me, but his habit of smiling seemed to tell me that he knew. In that case, avoiding it would only bring more curiosity.

I replied quietly, “…When I went to the photoshoot for the album with Yeonseon.”

“Oh, Yeonseon Ham.”

I hoped that Hyehyun didn’t hear me mention his brother, but thanks to Woorim repeating my answer in a loud voice, all my efforts went to waste. Hyehyun’s back flinched ever so slightly at the mention of “Yeonseon Ham.” My brows furrowed and I looked at my feet. I felt my stomach churn.

Thankfully, Woorim’s question-and-answer session ended with that. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked around leisurely. He didn’t look like he would go back to his group any time soon.

“This hallway is really weird.” It was as he said. We were climbing the stairs just a moment ago, but now we were going down west. The only path was narrow, so everyone had to follow the person in front in a single file. After the downward slope, a hallway going east appeared. At the end of that hallway, there was another set of stairs. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that we were going up, down, and sideways in the same place.

The ceiling lights were bright, but considering the location, everything felt a bit dim and dark. Given that we were going around in circles, my sense of time distorted and I felt that we had wandered for a couple of hours, even though only 20 minutes probably passed.

“I heard just now that the place we’re in right now… is actually an extension of the original villa.”

“Extension?”

Woorim chucked and added, “What that means is that the impressive exterior was just fake and this is the area that connects the fake and the real buildings together. They made it so that we go in circles before going into the real house.”

I remembered why we came to gather here in the first place. “Oh, so we can’t figure out where the exit is.”

Since the show was based on the urban legend about the mansion with 101 doors, the pith of the show was similar—escape. In other words, we would need to find the real “exit” among the countless rooms. Of course, they didn’t expect us to search with no clues to guide us. Some rooms had hints and others had traps. The goal was to use the hints to avoid the rooms with traps while finding clues about the exit.

This hallway was probably connected to a door of the real building on one of the floors.

“The building we’re going into I heard had no windows at all. Doesn’t that sound more like a prison than a villa? I can’t believe it has so many rooms and they’re all closed off.” He must have said it jokingly, but I couldn’t laugh at all. The mansion in my memory was windowless and dark. The light as faint as the early morning was all that lingered, tranquil and forlorn, as it touched the chandeliers on the ceiling and the frames and mirrors on the walls.

I got a bit nervous.

“Then if this space crumbles down, we’ll all be helplessly trapped in that mansion, since this is the only path connecting the real building to the outside,” I said.

Woorim’s smile faded. “…That’s true.”

But that only lasted for a moment. He cheerfully continued chatting. “Are you scared that would happen? You don’t look like it though.”

“Of course—I was afraid of the grim reaper coming for me and I ditched my friend to save myself. I’m a coward.”

“You never said that you really saw a grim reaper.”

“…”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not planning on asking you what you saw,” he answered in a way that was on the borderline of grating and smiled very nonchalantly.

Just like me, Woorim didn’t readily expose his true thoughts and feelings, although he did it with a bright smile while I was always expressionless. Idols were idols, even if they were unpopular. Woorim knew that his face was well-liked by people, and he knew how to use it to his advantage. In other words, he was a person who acted accordingly, depending on the situation.

Just like Yeonseon.